“Russia, as is known, has done much to make the U.N. monitoring mission in Syria a reality. We believed and continue to believe that the U.N. monitoring mission is an important element in implementing the Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for the Syrian Crisis, Kofi Annan’s plan, primarily in facilitating the end of violence no matter which quarters it comes from. It is important to prevent further casualties and suffering among the peaceful Syrian population that bears the brunt of the consequences of the armed confrontation,” he said on Monday, June 18.

“In this respect we believe that a resumption of normal work of the U.N. observers, naturally on condition of full personal security, would extremely necessary. This requires certain measures on the part of both the government of Syria and the armed opposition so that the personnel of the U.N. monitoring mission could get free and safe access to different parts of Syria, including for objective verification of ceasefire and facilitation of dialogue on the ground,” the spokesman said.

“We have repeatedly drawn attention to the inadmissibility of statements and actions by certain external forces that lead to escalation of confrontation in Syria instead of facilitating pacification in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Annan plan. We think that a decisive limit must be set to such approaches that do not fit into the logic of the consolidated position of the international community,” Lukashevich said.

Eternal interference in Syria may have unpredictable consequences that will affect a large number of countries in the region, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier.

“I cannot engage in guesswork as to what international players want,” Lavrov said.

“I can say what this will lead to,” Lavrov said. “This can lead to a gross violation of stability that has already been seriously undermined in that region. The consequences will be unpredictable and will affect a large number of countries in the region. And the central result of this process will be a split in the Islamic work between Sunnis and Shiites,” the minister said.

“I hope that this is not what is sought by those who have a sharp position in favour of changing the regime in Syria. Our assessments indicate that this scenario is quite possible if all of us do not take decisive steps now to influence all Syrian sides to make them stop fighting each other and to begin negotiations,” Lavrov said.